COP 21 has begun, and denier forces have failed to distract the media with a major faux-scandal. This is despite the best efforts of deniers like Lamar Smith (R-TX), whose NOAA witch-hunt was recently criticized by his hometown paper’s editorial board and lauded by a coal CEO.
Without a scandal upon which to report, the WSJ editorial board has resorted to its time-tested tactic of spreading misinformation via opinion articles, like the “Complete Guide to the Climate Debate,” written by Matt Ridley and Benny Peiser, two men short on expertise but long on bias.
In a small step forward, the WSJ does make an effort to disclose the authors' bias, noting that Ridley “has an interest in coal mining on his family’s land” and that Peiser “is the director of the Global Warming Policy Forum.” That said, and despite the considerable length of the piece, which clocks in at over 1,800 words, the WSJ couldn't find space to mention the full extent of Matt King Coal Ridley's coal mining interests—estimated at an annual 4.1 million British pounds ($6.1m)—nor did it see fit to mention that the Global Warming Policy Forum is the political campaign arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. UK charity laws necessitated the split between the Forum and the Foundation once it was determined that the Foundation's charity work was actually promoting a political agenda.
The op-ed itself starts with a hodgepodge of denier science tricks intended to undercut the need for any agreement in Paris. The second half is a slightly more realistic, though deeply pessimistic, take on prospects in Paris and potential decarbonization policies.
Greg Laden and Peter Sinclair teamed up to author a rebuttal, which we'll supplement and reinforce here with a few points:
Ridley and Peiser say that recent warming has been insignificant; meanwhile, the most recent of at least six studies this year debunking the “hiatus” finds nothing abnormal about the short-term fluctuations to which deniers cling as evidence of no warming. With 2015 set to break 2014’s record heat, and 2011-2015 being the hottest 5-year period on record, it's clear the planet is heating up at a dangerous rate.
Ridley and Peiser downplay the impacts of climate change on extreme weather, ignoring the recent UN report saying that floods and heat waves have doubled in frequency in the last decade. These extreme events are now so common that they've become nearly daily occurrences. Ridley and Peiser also ignore the new BAMS issue linking a variety of extreme weather events to climate change.
The duo then cites Richard Tol and his recent study to argue that warming may be good. But an image from the study shows that only one paper finds benefits, and that’s only if warming is limited to 1°C—which recent data says we've already reached! Not to mention, all this ignores the possibility that gremlins have again tampered with Tol’s analysis.
On the energy front, Ridley and Peiser's unsurprising pessimism is as misguided as their science. While wind and solar are currently only a small portion of the world’s energy mix, that’s set to change. The cost of solar has fallen 80 percent since '08, and wind is already cost competitive with fossil fuels. On top of that, 19 nations (including the US) are joining an effort spearheaded by Bill Gates to double investments in renewables.
There’s plenty more that could use correction, and hopefully others with more space will do so. Until then, be wary of naysayers with political campaign or purely financial motivations to delay the inevitable transition to clean energy. They have reasons to criticize the Paris agreement, but they lack the facts to do it honestly.
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